About Us

Alex Eydelman - Born in Ukraine, immigrated to the United States in the fall of 1989. He has 20 years of chess teaching experience, and his students have won many state and national championships. He is the founder of the longest running chess club at the Jewish Community Center in Stamford, CT and he has been teaching chess at Norwalk Community College for more than 10 years in the "College for Kids" program where he has taught more than hundreds of children over the years.

Alex was associated with American Chess Teachers Association where he taught in many different schools and directed more than 100 rated United States Chess Federation (USCF) tournaments. Alex currently teaches in Darien, New Canaan, Stamford, Greenwich, and Westport both public and private schools. Alex also teaches a very successful advanced chess club in Greenwich, CT where the strongest kids from Fairfield and Westchester county meet for lessons and practice play. His methods of teaching are illuminated in many newspaper articles and magazines.

In 1995, Alex translated a large portion of the book "A New Era" from Russian to English. The book is about the World Champion Garry Kasparov playing the Deep Blue computer in a chess match.

Sergey Kudrin was born in the USSR. He achieved his Grandmaster title in 1984 going on to win chess tournaments at Copenhagen in 1983, and Beer-Sheva in 1984, and Torremolinos in 1985. He played in the 2005 Chess World Cup at Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia seeded 102nd, the 1999 Las Vegas FIDE Chess World Championship seeded 70th, and the 2004 FIDE World Chess Championship held in Tripoli, Libya, where he was seeded 92nd.

In the United States Kudrin won third place in the 2008 Frank K. Berry United States Chess Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2008. He is also third in the 2008 World Chess Live Grand Prix standings. He has also been a valued member on the United States Chess League in 2007 and 2008. Kudrin won the United States Open Championship in 1984 and 2007.In the July 2009 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2578.

GM Kudrin often has encouraged chess activities such as recruiting GM Boris Spassky to join the Western States Open in 2004 and 2005.

Sergey was the head coach for the U.S. Chess Team at the Youth World Championship Games in Armenia and Turkey. In 2002 his student, Jennifer Shahade, won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington.

Julio Maldonado is a leading chess instructor for National Educational Chess Association. Julio has been teaching chess in curriculum-based and enrichment programs for over 10 years. Julio is also a tournament director. He is very organized and has wonderful ideas which contribute to tournaments held by National Educational Chess Association.

Julio is an active tournament player. In 1986, while serving in the United States Army in Germany, Julio finished the tournament in the top 10. He has had a lot of experience playing against opponents of different levels.Julio teaches in various schools in Lower Fairfield County such as; Darien, Stamford, New Canaan. Julio is also a leading coach at Branchville Elementary School in Ridgefield, Connecticut and a few schools in Wilton, Connecticut.